Smell Great. Eat Well. Travel Often

I will not pretend to be particularly happy about the fact that I am no longer being pampered on board a beautiful, elegant cruise ship that catered to all of my wants and needs, and I won’t attempt to insult your intelligence by lying to you either:
I have just returned from a memorable, beautiful, wonderful holiday as adventurous as it was relaxing and I absolutely loved every moment of it!
My boyfriend and I, after our disastrous journey to Mexico last year was given complimentary return tickets to any Virgin Atlantic destination and after at first trying to book to go to South Africa (but couldn’t match the flights), we decided to do something else that we’d never done before: Go on a cruise. And not just any old cruise to the med, but a Caribbean cruise. Caribbean holidays are my favourite kind, and my boyfriends too as there’s just nothing quite like swimming in the warm and crystal clear blue Caribbean sea with the sun kissing you all over. Nothing quite like it at all. I’d so far been to 4 Caribbean islands, including Mexico, Trinidad, Tobago and Jamaica. My boyfriend has been to a few more then me including Antigua and Barbados but neither of us had been to St Kitts, Dominica, St Thomas or St Maarten, and I had never been to Barbados! so when we saw a cruise going to those destinations from Fort Lauderdale, Florida we naturally jumped at the chance!
We didn’t really know what to expect of the whole cruise thing but I tried to go for the best cruise line for the kind of experience we wanted to have which was basically “modern luxury minus any children or drunken louts” so when I came across a cruise line called Celebrity I was pretty much decided that we would sail with them. They had a fleet of beautifully designed and almost completely brand spanking new ships but the ship that fit our itinerary was called the Equinox. Ironically enough Celebrity’s motto was indeed “Modern Luxury” and though they weren’t technically an “Adults only” ship they didn’t have any discernible facilities for children so we knew that we were onto a winner.

When we boarded the ship we were indeed extremely impressed with the look of it, the sheer SIZE of it – for it was truly gigantic, and we were impressed with all of the available facilities on board. Unfortunately, as we had chosen “grown up” facilities however, it had attracted very grown up passengers, i.e GRANNY’s. At first it bothered us a little as being only 31, and my boyfriend 40, we weren’t particularly overwhelmed with the prospect of spending 10 days on the high sea’s with thousands of old age pensioners but as the cruise progressed I found I didn’t really mind it much at all. At least they were polite, friendly and mostly sober – not yelling and falling over like drunken louts. The ship itself had a lot to offer, providing a variety of facilities and activities including a basketball court, ping pong table, a night club, spa, gym, 2 theatres and various swimming pools and even a glass blowing show, all aboard this magnificent floating vessel. Just sitting outside on our balcony watching the ocean was a joy, and of course dining at all of the amazing restaurants on the ship but really nothing compared to the experience of going to all of the different islands, sightseeing, going on excursions and visiting the beautiful beaches. So, if you haven’t done a cruise before, I highly recommend it. There are different types of ships, going to different destinations all over the world and offering different experiences and facilities, and I can honestly say that holidaying in this way is the most enjoyable and varied way of holidaying. You get to see and experience so much more. I had an amazing time and I was truly sad to leave and to have to return to this cold and grey country (sorry England, London in particular), but it’s true!